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Friday, January 28, 2011

Ordinariate Watch: Dissident Anglicans step closer to Rome

The path to Rome detours by the Gold Coast for those disaffected Australian Anglicans planning to take up Pope Benedict's offer to join the Catholic Church.

Up to 50 clergy and laity will gather for the first time nationally at St Stephen's College at Coomera for three days from Tuesday to discuss the Australian Anglican ordinariate - the local framework which will allow them to keep their married clergy, liturgy and church structures within Catholicism.

The prominent Sydney barrister John McCarthy, QC, has been briefed to advise the main dissident group of conservatives, the breakaway Traditional Anglican Communion, on constitutional and legal issues arising from the historic move.

"Certainly the exercise has never been done before, not since the Reformation," he said.